


The Can Opener is a Metaphor

by frankiesin



Series: Say It With Neon [17]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: (i'm glad that's a tag), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Fan Culture - Freeform, M/M, References to Suits (US TV), Spencer and Mikey are Disasters It's FinE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 07:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16806349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankiesin/pseuds/frankiesin
Summary: Mikey just wanted to get laid. He didn't expect to get into a fucking TV show about fake lawyers.





	The Can Opener is a Metaphor

**Author's Note:**

> Is this crack? Mmmmmmaybe. But consider this: it's my AU I do what I want. Also Linda and Spencer are Harvey and Donna and you cannot take that away from me.

**August 13, 2013; Los Angeles, California.**

_ Spencer: hey u wanna come over _

_ Mikey: maybe? hook up or?? _

_ Spencer: linda and i are watching suits tonight its kind of a thing _

_ Spencer: but we can fuck after its over _

Mikey frowned at his phone.  _ Suits _ . He assumed it was some kind of show, but he’d never heard of it. It was five in the afternoon, on a Tuesday, and Mikey didn’t have anything better to do with his time. It was either sitting around in his apartment and not calling Gee back or going over to Spencer’s place and watching a show until Linda left and they could fuck. 

Mikey lit a cigarette and texted Spencer back, saying he’d be there. 

_ Spencer: coool do u want one of us to pick u up or are u gonna get a ride? _

_ Mikey: ill get a ride _

_ Mikey: when should i come over _

_ Spencer: whenever u want dude linda and i are making seven layer dip _

Mikey considered it. He usually just grabbed a bottle of medium salsa and Tostitos from the corner store by his apartment complex. Mikey didn’t do a lot of cooking. He’d never learned, and at this point in his life, he didn’t think he needed to. He’d been on tour for almost twelve years, and before that he’d been living with his mom, and she didn’t trust either of her kids in the kitchen. 

_ Mikey: sounds good. You know where i live right _

_ Spencer: yep _

_ Spencer: ill be over in about 30? _

_ Mikey: see u then _

Mikey could do a lot in thirty minutes. Most of what he wanted to do involved drinking, and he wasn’t supposed to be doing that anymore so he was a little lost. He’d been clean for a month. He was supposed to be proving something to Gee. 

“Fuck it,” Mikey said. It wasn’t as though Spencer would care. Spencer was too concerned with his own band and with trying to get into Dallon’s pants to care about Mikey drinking. Mikey didn’t even have that much in the apartment. Gee and Ray had come through two weeks ago and cleared everything out, and Mikey hadn’t felt up to getting anything since then. 

There was a bottle of cheap, college kid vodka shoved in the back of Mikey’s closet. It was lukewarm and gross, but it was there. Mikey didn’t have to go down to the corner store and buy something. 

He sipped. He didn’t want to go through it all at once, and he didn’t want Spencer (or Linda, who would be there for some reason) to notice he was drunk. Mikey didn’t even want to be  _ drunk _ , he just wanted to not be sober. 

Mikey was about a quarter of the way through the bottle when he got the  _ I’m here _ text from Spencer. Mikey put the top back on the bottle and shoved it back into his closet. He was already wearing boots. He rarely took his shoes off, an old habit from touring and living in depression dens with Gee. Mikey grabbed his sunglasses, wallet, and a mostly full pack of cigarettes before heading to the door. 

“Ah, shit,” Mikey said, and turned around to grab his apartment keys. Those were important. 

Spencer and a blonde woman were sitting in a Subaru outside Mikey’s apartment. Mikey flipped his pack of cigarettes around in his hand as he made his way over to the car. He didn’t feel drunk, but walking was hard now and he didn’t want to look like a dumbass in public. 

Mikey slid into the backseat and looked over at the blonde. “I’m guessing you’re Linda?”

“I’m hoping you’re Mikey,” she said, smirking like she and Mikey were in on a joke. “Otherwise I just let a stranger into my car for no reason.”

Spencer rolled his eyes. “Linda, this is Mikey. We met in London. Mikey, this is Linda. We met in Chicago.”

And that was that. Linda backed out of the apartment complex and headed north, into West Hollywood. Mikey ignored the music coming from the car because it sucked, and instead tried to figure out where he’d seen Linda from. Obviously she’d known Spencer for a while, if they’d met in Chicago. She didn’t look like she’d been a fan of Fall Out Boy, so she would have had to have met Spencer somewhere other than at a show. 

“How did you two meet?” Mikey asked before he could stop himself. 

“High school,” Spencer said. 

“Yeah, Spencer helped me start up a GSA during our senior year. I let him use my parents’ garage as a practice space in return, and then he ended up in a really cool band,” Linda said. She and Spencer exchanged a fist bump as the light turned green. Linda looked at Mikey through the rearview mirror. “I know how you two met, by the way. Spencer told me.”

“Okay,” Mikey said. He didn’t like that. He didn’t know who else Spencer had told about their affair in London. Mikey had gone after Spencer because he thought that Spencer would understand the need to keep quiet. Then again, Spencer was open about liking men, so maybe he didn’t get that it wasn’t easy for everyone to come out. 

“She’s the only person, dude, don’t freak out about it,” Spencer said. 

Mikey wanted to ask him if Linda also knew that they’d started fucking again. If she knew that Spencer had followed Mikey out of that first meeting and instead of asking him what the hell he was doing he and Mikey had ended up fucking in an empty room in the building. 

“How much do you know about  _ Suits _ , anyway?” Spencer said after a moment of awkward silence. 

“Absolutely nothing,” Mikey said. 

“Oh, shit dude,” Spencer said. He turned to Linda and the two exchanged a grin. Mikey felt like he was fourteen again, and Gee was sitting him down to explain why Dungeons and Dragons was the best thing to happen to this planet. 

Sure enough, it was just like that.  _ Suits  _ was a show, just as Mikey had predicted. According to Spencer and Linda, it revolved around two guys: one lawyer and one kid pretending to be a lawyer. There were cases, romances, and of course, the drama over whether or not the fake lawyer would ever be caught as a fraud. 

“It’s great, you’ll love it,” Spencer said. 

“Are we still going to live blog it?” Linda asked. She pulled up to a house with a pride flag hanging next to the door. “Or should we hold off this week since you have a guest?”

“We can still blog,” Spencer said. He turned around in his seat. “Linda and I have a blog where we talk about the episodes. It’s kind of like being in the fandom, but we’re anonymous. Just in case.”

“Right,” Mikey said. This was sounding more and more like growing up with Gee. Mikey wasn’t sure what he was getting into, and he was terrified there would be crazed fangirls involved. Mikey had dealt with enough of those while in My Chem. He didn’t need to get dragged into more. 

He followed Spencer and Linda into the house. It looked like something out of a magazine, and Mikey immediately didn’t trust it. He didn’t know if this was where Spencer lived, or if he was at Linda’s house, but either way, he didn’t like it. He was used to messy. He’d grown up surrounded by chaos and clutter, and that was what felt like home to him. 

He ended up just watching Spencer and Linda make snacks. Everything was homemade. There weren’t pizza rolls or Chex Mix or anything. There was hummus and chopped vegetables and fancy tortilla chips and baked dips. 

Mikey stole a chip. “Do you guys do this every week?”

“Every week we can, yeah,” Spencer said, and took a chip for himself. “We binged the first two seasons back in May when I first started going to rehab. I needed something to do to keep my mind off of stuff, and Linda wanted a break from work, so we found  _ Suits _ . And now it’s our thing.”

Mikey shook his head. “Okay. Sure. That… that sounds like something two well-adjusted adults would do.”

“It is,” Linda said. She grabbed the dip. “Come on, let’s get this shit set up. Spence, you wanna grab the Cokes from the fridge?”

“Duh,” Spencer said. He turned to Mikey. “You want one?”

Mikey nodded. He grabbed the veggie tray and followed Linda over to the couch. He left the spot in the middle for Spencer, and was surprised when he pulled up his laptop before turning the TV on. Linda opened her Coke and leaned in close to him as he pulled up a site called tumblr. 

“What exactly is that?” Mikey asked, slowly looking up at Spencer. “And why do you have it?”

“It’s where we blog from,” Spencer said. He opened up a new post and Mikey saw that his and Linda’s blog was called  _ donna-and-harvey _ . Mikey knew that Donna and Harvey were two of the characters from the show, but he didn’t know why Spencer and Linda had decided to go with those two for their blog name. 

“Oh, looks like people are already asking about our thoughts,” Linda said. 

“We’ll get to them,” Spencer said. “I want to let everyone know we’re online and ready to go.”

Mikey thought this was odd. But, if it was working for Spencer, he couldn’t really complain about it. Mikey shrugged and settled back into the couch, wishing he’d had more to drink before coming over. It wasn’t that he was bored. He was used to doing things while not sober, and this was new and different and he didn’t want to have to deal with his own fucking brain while trying to have a night in with friends. 

Mikey didn’t know if he could consider Spencer his friend. They were fucking, but outside of that Mikey didn’t know what they were. Definitely not dating. Spencer was into Dallon, and was getting clean so that he could actually date Dallon. Mikey wasn’t someone Spencer would consider. Mikey didn’t want to be someone Spencer would consider, because Mikey didn’t date guys. He couldn’t. That was… that was something he didn’t want to think about. 

Linda turned on the TV a few minutes before the show was supposed to start. Spencer still had the laptop on. 

Mikey looked over at them. Spencer was clean. Had been clean for a few months. He still looked like shit, and like he wasn’t sleeping a lot, but he looked happy. He looked like he was finding something other than pills and alcohol to hold onto. 

Mikey turned his attention to the show. Maybe there was something in there for him too.

* * *

**August 20, 2013; Los Angeles, California.**

Mikey showed up drunk. It wasn’t his fault, really. Gee had gotten on him about something--he couldn’t remember now--and he needed to get out of his head. Spencer took one look at Mikey and knew it. 

“You want a water?” Spencer asked. No judgement, just a question. 

“Sure,” Mikey said. What he really wanted was a beer, but Spencer and Linda didn’t have that in their house. Mikey still couldn’t get over the fact that they lived together. He’d assumed that Spencer had gotten his own place after he left London, but apparently not. Apparently he was living in a house with his friend. 

Mikey rubbed his thumb over the rim of the water glass. “This one’s the flashback episode, right?”

“Yep,” Spencer said. They weren’t going to fuck tonight. Mikey could sense it. Spencer was weird about when he was okay with fucking Mikey. If he thought Mikey was sober, they could have sex. If he didn’t, it wasn’t going to happen. Mikey didn’t know if that was supposed to be an incentive for him to be sober or not. It wasn’t working, clearly. 

The episode started up. Mikey didn’t want to admit it out loud, but he was interested. One of the main characters was named Mike, which was the most common name ever, but Mikey had chosen to name himself Michael and the character hadn’t. 

“I still don’t think Mike and Rachel know what being in love really means,” Linda said. 

Spencer rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it. They’ve been together for what, three episodes? And they’re pretty much planning their wedding already. It’s dumb.”

“That’s straight people for you,” Linda shrugged. She grabbed a chip. Mikey missed Doritos.

“I still think Mike’s bi,” Spencer said. He looked over at Mikey. “It’s a constant debate. I think the writers are writing Mike as bi, Linda thinks it’s just the fans interpreting him as bi.”

“I don’t think he’s bi,” Mikey said. “It’s a show. They’re not going to have gay characters on it.”

“They should,” Linda said. She bumped her knee with Spencer’s. “Donna and Rachel. Thoughts?”

“We could write that,” Spencer said. Linda raised her eyebrows at him, but Spencer didn’t respond. He just reached for his own Coke and tucked one of his feet under himself. He opened up a Word document and typed out  _ rachel/donna in the fake marriage au?  _ before saving it. Mikey wanted to know what was going on, and what an au was. 

He didn’t ask. The episode started. Donna and Harvey fucked--with whipped cream involved--and then stole a can opener.

“You’re shitting me,” Linda said. She grabbed a chip and snapped it in half. “ _ That’s _ the backstory for the can opener? That’s dumb.”

“Someone’s gonna rewrite that,” Spencer said. 

Mikey raised his eyebrows. “Like one of the writers? Do they go back over episodes and re-do them for this show?”

“Oh, no, this is fan stuff,” Spencer said. He turned his laptop towards Mikey so that Mikey could see where he was. It was tumblr again, but Spencer’s feed was filled with pictures from the show. Mikey leaned over, his shoulder pressing against Spencer’s arm, and slowly started scrolling down the page. Spencer put his hand on Mikey’s wrist. “It’s… it’s a lot. We don’t take it seriously, but it’s still fun to think about the what if’s.”

Mikey looked up at Spencer. He could kiss him, if he wanted. Spencer and Mikey didn’t kiss, though, not unless it was going to lead to sex. This wasn’t going to lead to sex. Linda was here, and the show was still going on. Mikey swallowed and thought about getting a cigarette. “What kind of what if’s?”

“Harvey and Mike,” Linda said. She didn’t seem put off by how close Mikey and Spencer were. “It’s a big thing in the fandom.”

“Right,” Mikey said. He leaned back away from Spencer. Harvey was back on the screen again, looking far too confident in his suit. He was supposed to be the attractive one, but Mikey didn’t see it. He just came off as a douchebag. 

Harvey was complaining about how he didn’t like Donna having a relationship with some other character. Mikey rolled his eyes. “It’s not like the two of them are together in the first place. What’s his deal?”

“Harvey’s possessive,” Spencer said. He typed something on his laptop that Mikey couldn’t see. “It’s kind of his thing to get way too protective of the people he loves.”

“Maybe he should tell her he loves her then,” Mikey said. He took a sip from his water and wished it was a beer. “Because right now he’s being an asshole.”

“Didn’t know you were so invested,” Linda said. She was smiling from behind her Coke. Mikey shrugged, trying to act like he didn’t care. He didn’t want to get invested in the show, but it was hard not to. The characters weren’t that well done, but they were interesting and Mikey couldn’t figure out who he was supposed to be rooting for. 

For a split second, Mikey considered asking Spencer and Linda if he could join their blog. He wanted to know what the hell was going on, and get filled in with all the fan theories. Mikey couldn’t do that, though. Fan shit was for girls, always had been. That’s why Gee was the one with a subscription to a Star Trek fanzine, and why it wasn’t just Spencer and Mikey watching this show. 

Mikey shook his head. “I’m not invested.”

* * *

**August 22, 2013; Los Angeles, California.**

Mikey woke up sometime in the afternoon and decided to look into this fan shit for  _ Suits _ . He was curious and bored. He wasn’t going to get involved himself. 

He booted up his laptop and pulled it onto his bare legs. He went straight to Spencer and Linda’s blog, typing in  _ donna-and-harvey.tumblr.com _ and hoping it wouldn’t be bad. There had been a hate blog for him after everything with Alicia happened, and that blog had been ugly. Mikey hated looking at it, even though everything on it so far was correct. 

He and Sarah weren’t a thing anymore. She’d dumped him not long after My Chem had ended, and that was pretty much the only reason Lindsey was even talking to Mikey. She didn’t like him, and Mikey understood why. He’d cheated on her friend with a girl ten years his junior. Not his best decision, but at least Lindsey didn’t know about Spencer. 

Hopefully, no one would know about Spencer. No one but Linda, who’d already been told before Mikey could tell Spencer to keep his mouth shut. 

Mikey shook his head, trying to get away from those thoughts. It didn’t matter if people heard about him and Spencer. They were fucking. That was it. Mikey didn’t feel anything for the guy, because he wasn’t really into guys, not in a romantic way. Mikey couldn’t see himself dating a guy, or even marrying a guy. 

Mikey scrolled through the blog for a bit, taking in various posts and fan theories and wondering how Spencer had gotten roped into all of this. It was odd. It reminded Mikey of the fanfiction that people had written about him and his bandmates years ago. He and Frank had gotten high and read through a lot of it. They’d only stopped when Frank found one that was Mikey and Pete, and Mikey nearly punched a hole through the screen trying to get away from that part of his life. 

He liked his fiction to be far away from reality.  _ Suits _ , despite it’s over dramatic writing, was far enough from reality to keep Mikey interested. 

Spencer and Linda had multiple links on the side of their blog.  _ ask \\\ about \\\ ao3 _ . Mikey didn’t know what the third one meant, but he assumed it had something to do with fan stuff so he wasn’t too interested. He did click on the  _ about _ link, curious about how Spencer and Linda had decided to present themselves online. 

_ hi, we’re S and L and we run this blog. we’ve known each other for years but started watching suits back in the spring and fell in love.  _

_ on this blog you’ll find meta, mike/harvey headcanons, and L complaining about how donna should be gay.  _

_ (thanks S. _

_ we’re both in our 2os and based on the west coast. check out our fics, maybe? _

Mikey frowned. He really didn’t want to delve into fanfiction again, even if it was written by people he knew about people who weren’t real. But, it seemed to be a big part of being a fan of the show. There was a lot of fanfiction on Spencer and Linda’s blog. 

Mikey clicked the third link. It opened to a new tab, with the words  _ 1-7 Works by SuitsDuo _ on the top of the page. The first fic was from a few weeks ago, before Mikey had started watching the show with Spencer and Linda. It was a couple thousand words long, and Mikey didn’t click on it. He didn’t want to read what Spencer and Linda were writing. That was too close. 

Instead, he clicked on the pairing tag.  _ Mike Ross/Harvey Specter. _ It opened a new page and Mikey clicked on the first link there. Mikey grabbed a cigarette and lit it. If he was going to spend his day reading stories about two fictional characters, he wanted to get settled in first. He wasn’t even sure why he was doing all of this. He’d figured out the fandom, and he was already watching the show. He didn’t need to read fanfiction. He knew what fanfiction was like. It wasn’t his style.

_... _ _ How was it possible for one man to leave him feeling both utterly confused and burning with desire at the same time… _

_...He feels the heat of their touch burn through his spine… _

_...a sinfully chaste kiss that lasts seconds… _

Mikey gritted his teeth. It wasn’t even written well, and yet he couldn’t stop picturing Spencer there. Spencer, dressed up in a suit with his hair ruffled the way Mike’s always was on the show. Mikey blew smoke out at his computer screen. He wasn’t turned on by fanfiction. It wasn’t even good fanfiction. 

He went back before he had to read painfully written porn. If he was going to get off to this (and he wasn’t, really, because that was taking things way too far), then he wanted to read something good. Mikey hadn’t been a fan of English class in school because all of the books he had to read were so static and boring. Mikey wanted to be engaged. He didn’t want to work for his entertainment. 

Mikey switched the rating over to just Explicit. That sounded like actual porn. 

The first one he clicked on has Mike getting punished, sexually, by some character Mikey doesn’t know. He wasn’t interested in that. He wasn’t really interested in getting off, either, but he’d heard that fanfiction was supposed to be all about fucking. Mikey could read about fucking. He didn’t want to read about two fictional characters being in love. That felt weird. 

Mikey skimmed across a fic where there were tags for Gore, Cannibalism, and Serial Killers. He considered clicking on it, just to answer the burning question of what and why the fuck, but decided there were some things in life he didn’t need to understand. Mike/Harvey murder porn was one of those things. 

_...Think of how wet I'm going to make you after I come, again and again until it's dripping… _

Mikey paused. That looked interesting. He wasn’t personally into cum play, but he could see Spencer saying that. Not to him, but to someone else, and Mikey wasn’t vain enough to think that he could keep Spencer to himself. Spencer was hot, Spencer liked to be in control in the bedroom, and Spencer was on the table of people Mikey could get off too without regretting it. 

Mikey opened the fic. 

* * *

**August 27th, 2013; Los Angeles, California.**

“I can’t believe you jacked off to Marvey porn,” Spencer said into Mikey’s shoulder. 

Mikey pushed him up to glare at him. “Don’t call it that. That makes it worse.”

“That’s what it  _ is _ , Mikey,” Spencer said. He was talking about fan shit while he had two fingers in Mikey’s ass. Mikey was turned on while Spencer was talking about fucking  _ Marvey fanfiction _ . Spencer curled his fingers up and Mikey out a small moan. Spencer grinned. “And you were into it.”

“I hate you,” Mikey grumbled. He grabbed Spencer’s head and pulled him down into a kiss, biting against Spencer’s lower lip. Spencer rocked forward, turning his fingers inside Mikey. Mikey bucked up against Spencer’s hips, scratching his fingers down Spencer’s back. He leaned back and looked Spencer up and down. “Now are you going to fuck me or what? Because I can leave.”

“I know,” Spencer said. He kissed Mikey’s jawline. “I’m glad you like the show.”

“It’s an excuse to hook up with you,” Mikey said, even though both of them knew that that wasn’t true any more. Mikey didn’t have to wait until  _ Suits _ to have sex with Spencer. He liked the show, and he was interested in the characters even if the whole fanfiction thing was too much for him. 

“Well. I’ll take it, whatever it is,” Spencer said. He ran his tongue over Mikey’s collar bone. “And in the meantime, maybe we should figure out a better use for that can opener.”

Mikey closed his eyes. “Fucking hell.”

Spencer laughed. “Just kidding. I’ll stick to the strap on.”

“Thank fuck,” Mikey said. He grabbed Spencer’s hand and pushed his fingers further in. Sex was sex, no can openers allowed. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed!


End file.
